by Leo Tolstoy
When he entered the drawing-room the thirty persons invited to dine, who were sitting beside Princess Elizabeth Ksavérevna Vorontsóva, or standing in groups by the windows, turned their faces towards him. Vorontsóv was dressed in his usual black military coat, with shoulder-straps but no epaulettes, and wore the White Cross of the Order of St George at his neck.
His clean-shaven, foxlike face wore a pleasant smile as, screwing up his eyes, he surveyed the assembly. Entering with quick soft steps he apologized to the ladies for being late, greeted the men, and approaching Princess Manana Orbelyáni – a tall, fine, handsome woman of Oriental type about forty-five years of age – he offered her his arm to take her in to dinner. Princess Elizabeth Ksavérevna Vorontsóva gave her arm to a red-haired general with bristly moustaches who was visiting Tiflis. A Georgian prince offered his arm to Princess Vorontsóva’s friend, Countess Choiseuil. Doctor Andréevsky, the aide-de-camp, and others, with ladies or without, followed these first couples. Footmen in livery and knee-breeches drew back and replaced the guests’ chairs when they sat down, while the major-domo ceremoniously ladled out steaming soup from a silver tureen.
Vorontsóv took his place in the centre of one side of the long table, and his wife sat opposite, with the general on her right. On the prince’s right sat his lady, the beautiful Orbelyáni; and on his left was a graceful, dark, red-cheeked Georgian woman, glittering with jewels and incessantly smiling.
‘Excellentes, chère amie!’9 replied Vorontsóv to his wife’s inquiry about what news the courier had brought him. ‘Simon a eu de la chance!’10 And he began to tell aloud, so that everyone could hear, the striking news (for him alone not quite unexpected, because negotiations had long been going on) that Hadji Murád, the bravest and most famous of Shamil’s officers, had come over to the Russians and would in a day or two be brought to Tiflis.
Everybody – even the young aides-de-camp and officials who sat at the far ends of the table and who had been quietly laughing at something among themselves – became silent and listened.
‘And you, General, have you ever met this Hadji Murád?’ asked the princess of her neighbour, the carroty general with the bristly moustaches, when the prince had finished speaking.
‘More than once, Princess.’
And the general went on to tell how Hadji Murád, after the mountaineers had captured Gergebel in 1843, had fallen upon General Pahlen’s detachment and killed Colonel Zolotúkhin almost before their very eyes.
Vorontsóv listened to the general and smiled amiably, evidently pleased that the latter had joined in the conversation. But suddenly his face assumed an absent-minded and depressed expression.
The general, having started talking, had begun to tell of his second encounter with Hadji Murád.
‘Why, it was he, if your Excellency will please remember,’ said the general, ‘who arranged the ambush that attacked the rescue party in the “Biscuit” expedition.’
‘Where?’ asked Vorontsóv, screwing up his eyes.
What the brave general spoke of as the ‘rescue’ was the affair in the unfortunate Dargo campaign in which a whole detachment, including Prince Vorontsóv who commanded it, would certainly have perished had it not been rescued by the arrival of fresh troops. Everyone knew that the whole Dargo campaign under Vorontsóv’s command – in which the Russians lost many killed and wounded and several cannon – had been a shameful affair, and therefore if anyone mentioned it in Vorontsóv’s presence they did so only in the aspect in which Vorontsóv had reported it to the Tsar – as a brilliant achievement of the Russian army. But the word ‘rescue’ plainly indicated that it was not a brilliant victory but a blunder costing many lives. Everybody understood this and some pretended not to notice the meaning of the general’s words, others nervously waited to see what would follow, while a few exchanged glances and smiled. Only the carroty general with the bristly moustaches noticed nothing, and carried away by his narrative quietly replied:
‘At the rescue, your Excellency.’
Having started on his favourite theme, the general recounted circumstantially how Hadji Murád had so cleverly cut the detachment in two that if the rescue party had not arrived (he seemed to be particularly fond of repeating the word ‘rescue’) not a man in the division would have escaped, because … He did not finish his story, for Manana Orbelyáni having understood what was happening, interrupted him by asking if he had found comfortable quarters in Tiflis. The general, surprised, glanced at everybody all round and saw his aides-de-camp from the end of the table looking fixedly and significantly at him, and he suddenly understood! Without replying to the princess’s question, he frowned, became silent, and began hurriedly swallowing the delicacy that lay on his plate, the appearance and taste of which both completely mystified him.
Everybody felt uncomfortable, but the awkwardness of the situation was relieved by the Georgian prince – a very stupid man but an extraordinarily refined and artful flatterer and courtier – who sat on the other side of Princess Vorontsóva. Without seeming to have noticed anything he began to relate how Hadji Murád had carried off the widow of Akhmet Khan of Mekhtulí.
‘He came into the village at night, seized what he wanted, and galloped off again with the whole party.’
‘Why did he want that particular woman?’ asked the princess.
‘Oh, he was her husband’s enemy, and pursued him but could never once succeed in meeting him right up to the time of his death, so he revenged himself on the widow.’
The princess translated this into French for her old friend Countess Choiseuil, who sat next to the Georgian prince.
‘Quelle horreur!’11 said the countess, closing her eyes and shaking her head.
‘Oh no!’ said Vorontsóv, smiling. ‘I have been told that he treated his captive with chivalrous respect and afterwards released her.’
‘Yes, for a ransom!’
‘Well, of course. But all the same he acted honourably.’
These words of Vorontsóv’s set the tone for the further conversation. The courtiers understood that the more importance was attributed to Hadji Murád the better the prince would be pleased.
‘The man’s audacity is amazing. A remarkable man!’
‘Why, in 1849 he dashed into Temir Khan Shurá and plundered the shops in broad daylight.’
An Armenian sitting at the end of the table, who had been in Temir Khan Shurá at the time, related the particulars of that exploit of Hadji Murád’s.
In fact, Hadji Murád was the sole topic of conversation during the whole dinner.
Everybody in succession praised his courage, his ability, and his magnanimity. Someone mentioned his having ordered twenty-six prisoners to be killed, but that too was met by the usual rejoinder, ‘What’s to be done? À la guerre, comme à la guerre!’12
‘He is a great man.’
‘Had he been born in Europe he might have been another Napoleon,’ said the stupid Georgian prince with a gift of flattery.
He knew that every mention of Napoleon was pleasant to Vorontsóv, who wore the White Cross at his neck as a reward for having defeated him.
‘Well, not Napoleon perhaps, but a gallant cavalry general if you like,’ said Vorontsóv.
‘If not Napoleon, then Murat.’
‘And his name is Hadji Murád!’
‘Hadji Murád has surrendered and now there’ll be an end to Shamil too,’ someone remarked.
‘They feel that now’ (this ‘now’ meant under Vorontsóv) ‘they can’t hold out,’ remarked another.
‘Tout cela est grâce à vous!’13 said Manana Orbelyáni.
Prince Vorontsóv tried to moderate the waves of flattery which began to flow over him. Still, it was pleasant, and in the best of spirits he led his lady back into the drawing-room.
After dinner, when coffee was being served in the drawing-room, the prince was particularly amiable to everybody, and going up to the general with the red bristly moustaches he tried to appear not to have noticed
his blunder.
Having made a round of the visitors he sat down to the card-table. He only played the old-fashioned game of ombre. His partners were the Georgian prince, an Armenian general (who had learnt the game of ombre from Prince Vorontsóv’s valet), and Doctor Andréevsky, a man remarkable for the great influence he exercised.
Placing beside him his gold snuff-box with a portrait of Alexander I on the lid, the prince tore open a pack of highly glazed cards and was going to spread them out, when his Italian valet, Giovanni, brought him a letter on a silver tray.
‘Another courier, your Excellency.’
Vorontsóv laid down the cards, excused himself, opened the letter, and began to read.
The letter was from his son, who described Hadji Murád’s surrender and his own encounter with Meller-Zakomélsky.
The princess came up and inquired what their son had written.
‘It’s all about the same matter.… Il a eu quelques désagréments avec le commandant de la place. Simon a eu tort.14 … But “All’s well that ends well”,’ he added in English, handing the letter to his wife; and turning to his respectfully waiting partners he asked them to draw cards.
When the first round had been dealt Vorontsóv did what he was in the habit of doing when in a particularly pleasant mood: with his white, wrinkled old hand he took out a pinch of French snuff, carried it to his nose, and released it.
X
WHEN Hadji Murád appeared at the prince’s palace next day, the waiting-room was already full of people. Yesterday’s general with the bristly moustaches was there in full uniform with all his decorations, having come to take leave. There was the commander of a regiment who was in danger of being court-martialled for misappropriating commissariat money, and there was a rich Armenian (patronized by Doctor Andréevsky) who wanted to obtain from the Government a renewal of his monopoly for the sale of vodka. There, dressed in black, was the widow of an officer who had been killed in action. She had come to ask for a pension, or for free education for her children. There was a ruined Georgian prince in a magnificent Georgian costume who was trying to obtain for himself some confiscated church property. There was an official with a large roll of paper containing a new plan for subjugating the Caucasus. There was also a Khan who had come solely to be able to tell his people at home that he had called on the prince.
They all waited their turn and were one by one shown into the prince’s cabinet and out again by the aide-de-camp, a handsome, fair-haired youth.
When Hadji Murád entered the waiting-room with his brisk though limping step all eyes were turned towards him and he heard his name whispered from various parts of the room.
He was dressed in a long white Circassian coat over a brown beshmét trimmed round the collar with fine silver lace. He wore black leggings and soft shoes of the same colour which were stretched over his instep as tight as gloves. On his head he wore a high cap draped turban-fashion – that same turban for which, on the denunciation of Akhmet Khan, he had been arrested by General Klügenau and which had been the cause of his going over to Shamil.
He stepped briskly across the parquet floor of the waiting-room, his whole slender figure swaying slightly in consequence of his lameness in one leg which was shorter than the other. His eyes, set far apart, looked calmly before him and seemed to see no one.
The handsome aide-de-camp, having greeted him, asked him to take a seat while he went to announce him to the prince, but Hadji Murád declined to sit down and, putting his hand on his dagger, stood with one foot advanced, looking round contemptuously at all those present.
The prince’s interpreter, Prince Tarkhánov, approached Hadji Murád and spoke to him. Hadji Murád answered abruptly and unwillingly. A Kumýk prince, who was there to lodge a complaint against a police official, came out of the prince’s room, and then the aide-de-camp called Hadji Murád, led him to the door of the cabinet, and showed him in.
The Commander-in-Chief received Hadji Murád standing beside his table, and his old white face did not wear yesterday’s smile but was rather stern and solemn.
On entering the large room with its enormous table and great windows with green venetian blinds, Hadji Murád placed his small sunburnt hands on his chest just where the front of his white coat overlapped, and lowering his eyes began, without hurrying, to speak distinctly and respectfully, using the Kumýk dialect which he spoke well.
‘I place myself under the powerful protection of the great Tsar and of yourself,’ said he, ‘and promise to serve the White Tsar in faith and truth to the last drop of my blood, and I hope to be useful to you in the war with Shamil who is my enemy and yours.’
Having heard the interpreter out, Vorontsóv glanced at Hadji Murád and Hadji Murád glanced at Vorontsóv.
The eyes of the two men met, and expressed to each other much that could not have been put into words and that was not at all what the interpreter said. Without words they told each other the whole truth. Vorontsóv’s eyes said that he did not believe a single word Hadji Murád was saying, and that he knew he was and always would be an enemy to everything Russian and had surrendered only because he was obliged to. Hadji Murád understood this and yet continued to give assurances of his fidelity. His eyes said, ‘That old man ought to be thinking of his death and not of war, but though he is old he is cunning, and I must be careful.’ Vorontsóv understood this also, but nevertheless spoke to Hadji Murád in the way he considered necessary for the success of the war.
‘Tell him’, said Vorontsóv, ‘that our sovereign is as merciful as he is mighty and will probably at my request pardon him and take him into his service.… Have you told him?’ he asked, looking at Hadji Murád.… ‘Until I receive my master’s gracious decision, tell him I take it on myself to receive him and make his sojourn among us pleasant.’
Hadji Murád again pressed his hands to the centre of his chest and began to say something with animation.
‘He says’, the interpreter translated, ‘that formerly, when he governed Avaria in 1839, he served the Russians faithfully and would never have deserted them had not his enemy, Akhmet Khan, wishing to ruin him, calumniated him to General Klügenau.’
‘I know, I know,’ said Vorontsóv (though if he had ever known he had long forgotten it). ‘I know,’ he repeated, sitting down and motioning Hadji Murád to the divan that stood beside the wall. But Hadji Murád did not sit down. Shrugging his powerful shoulders as a sign that he could not bring himself to sit in the presence of so important a man, he went on, addressing the interpreter:
‘Akhmet Khan and Shamil are both my enemies. Tell the prince that Akhmet Khan is dead and I cannot revenge myself on him, but Shamil lives and I will not die without taking vengeance on him,’ said he, knitting his brows and tightly closing his mouth.
‘Yes, yes; but how does he want to revenge himself on Shamil?’ said Vorontsóv quietly to the interpreter. ‘And tell him he may sit down.’
Hadji Murád again declined to sit down, and in answer to the question replied that his object in coming over to the Russians was to help them to destroy Shamil.
‘Very well, very well,’ said Vorontsóv; ‘but what exactly does he wish to do?… Sit down, sit down!’
Hadji Murád sat down, and said that if only they would send him to the Lesghian line and would give him an army, he would guarantee to raise the whole of Daghestan and Shamil would then be unable to hold out.
‘That would be excellent.… I’ll think it over,’ said Vorontsóv.
The interpreter translated Vorontsóv’s words to Hadji Murád.
Hadji Murád pondered.
‘Tell the Sirdar one thing more,’ Hadji Murád began again, ‘that my family are in the hands of my enemy, and that as long as they are in the mountains I am bound and cannot serve him. Shamil would kill my wife and my mother and my children if I went openly against him. Let the prince first exchange my family for the prisoners he has, and then I will destroy Shamil or die!’
‘All right, all right
,’ said Vorontsóv. ‘I will think it over.… Now let him go to the chief of the staff and explain to him in detail his position, intentions, and wishes.’
Thus ended the first interview between Hadji Murád and Vorontsóv.
That evening an Italian opera was performed at the new theatre, which was decorated in Oriental style. Vorontsóv was in his box when the striking figure of the limping Hadji Murád wearing a turban appeared in the stalls. He came in with Lóris-Mélikov,15 Vorontsóv’s aide-de-camp, in whose charge he was placed, and took a seat in the front row. Having sat through the first act with Oriental Mohammedan dignity, expressing no pleasure but only obvious indifference, he rose and looking calmly round at the audience went out, drawing to himself everybody’s attention.
The next day was Monday and there was the usual evening party at the Vorontsóvs’. In the large brightly lighted hall a band was playing, hidden among trees. Young women and women not very young wearing dresses that displayed their bare necks, arms, and breasts, turned round and round in the embrace of men in bright uniforms. At the buffet, footmen in red swallow-tail coats and wearing shoes and knee-breeches, poured out champagne and served sweetmeats to the ladies. The ‘Sirdar’s’ wife also, in spite of her age, went about half-dressed among the visitors smiling affably, and through the interpreter said a few amiable words to Hadji Murád who glanced at the visitors with the same indifference he had shown yesterday in the theatre. After the hostess, other half-naked women came up to him and all of them stood shamelessly before him and smilingly asked him the same question: How he liked what he saw? Vorontsóv himself, wearing gold epaulettes and gold shoulder-knots with his white cross and ribbon at his neck, came up and asked him the same question, evidently feeling sure, like all the others, that Hadji Murád could not help being pleased at what he saw. Hadji Murád replied to Vorontsóv as he had replied to them all, that among his people nothing of the kind was done, without expressing an opinion as to whether it was good or bad that it was so.